Indian Summer by William D. Howells

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Indian summer (NOVEL) By: William D. Howells: Indian Summer is an 1886 novel by William Dean Howells. Though it was published after The Rise of Silas ... was written before The Rise of Silas Lapham.

Indian Summer

Indian Summer

Indian Summer

Indian Summer, Vol. I

Indian Summer - Scholar's Choice Edition

passionate concentration of her being upon him, and he seemed to walk ina dream of her. From time to time they peered upon each other's faces,and then they paused, rapt and indifferent to all besides.

The young painters had their jokes about it; even Mr. Morton smiled, andMrs. Bowen recognised it. But Imogene did not smile; she regarded thelovers with an interest in them scarcely less intense than theirinterest in each other; and a cold perspiration of question broke out onColville's forehead. Was that her ideal of what her own engagementshould be? Had she expected him to behave in that way to her, and toaccept from her a devotion like that girl's? How bitterly he must havedisappointed her! It was so impossible to him that the thought of itmade him feel that he must break all ties which bound him to anythinglike it. And yet he reflected that the time was when he could have beenequal to that, and even more.

After lunch the painters joined them again, and they all went togetherto visit the ruins of the Roman theatre and the stretch of Etruscan wallbeyond it. The former seems older than the latter, whose huge blocks ofstone lie as firmly and evenly in their courses as if placed there ayear ago; the turf creeps to the edge at top, and some small trees nodalong the crest of the wall, whose ancient face, clean and bare, lookssternly out over a vast prospect, now young and smiling in the firstdelight of spring. The piety or interest of the community, which guardsthe entrance to the theatre by a fee of certain centesimi, may beconcerned in keeping the wall free from the grass and vines which arestealing the half-excavated arena back to forgetfulness and decay; butwhatever agency it was, it weakened the appeal that the wall made to thesympathy of the spectators.

They could do nothing with it; the artists did not take theirsketch-blocks from their pockets. But in the theatre, where a few brokencolumns marked the place of the stage, and the stone benches of theauditorium were here and there reached by a flight of uncovered steps,the human interest returned.

"I suspect that there is such a thing as a ruin's being too old," saidColville. "Our Etruscan friends made the mistake of building their wallseveral thousand years too soon for our purpose."

"Yes," consented the young clergyman. "It seems as if our own racebecame alienated from us through the mere effect of time, don't youthink, sir? I mean, of course, terrestrially."

The artists looked uneasy, as if they had not counted upon anything ofthis kind, and they began to scatter about for points of view. Effie gother mother's leave to run up and down one of the stairways, if she wouldnot fall. Mrs. Bowen sat down on one of the lower steps, and Mr. Mortontook his place respectfully near her.

"I wonder how it looks from the top?" Imogene asked this of Colville,with more meaning than seemed to belong to the question properly.

"There is nothing like going to see," he suggested. He helped her up,giving her his hand from one course of seats to another. When theyreached the point which commanded the best view of the whole, she satdown, and he sank at her feet, but they did not speak of the view.

"Theodore, I want to tell you something," she said abruptly. "I haveheard from home."

"Yes?" he replied, in a tone in which he did his best to express areadiness for any fate.

"Mother has telegraphed. She is coming out. She is on her way now. Shewill be here very soon."

Colville did not know exactly what to say to these passionatelyconsecutive statements. "Well?" he said at last.

"Well"--she repeated his word--"what do you intend to do?"

"Intend to do in what event?" he asked, lifting his eyes for the firsttime to the eyes which he felt burning down upon him.

"If she should refuse?"

Again he could not command an instant answer, but when it came it was afair one. "It isn't for me to say what I shall do," he replied gravely."Or, if it is, I can only say that I will do whatever you wish."

"Do _you_ wish nothing?"

"Nothing but your happiness."

"Nothing but my happiness!" she retorted. "What is my happiness to me?Have I ever sought it?"

"I can't say," he answered; "but if I did not think you would find it--"

"I shall find it, if ever I find it, in yours," she interrupted. "Andwhat shall you do if my mother will not consent to our engagement?"

The experienced and sophisticated man--for that in no ill way was whatColville was--felt himself on trial for his honour and his manhood bythis simple girl, this child. He could not endure to fall short of herideal of him at that moment, no matter what error or calamity thefulfilment involved. "If you feel sure that you love me, Imogene, itwill make no difference to me what your mother says. I would be glad ofher consent; I should hate to go counter to her will; but I know that Iam good enough man to be true and keep you all my life the first in allmy thoughts, and that's enough for me. But if you have any fear, anydoubt of yourself, now is the time--"

Imogene rose to her feet as in some turmoil of thought or emotion thatwould not suffer her to remain quiet.

"Oh, keep still!" "Don't get up yet!" "Hold on a minute, please!" camefrom the artists in different parts of the theatre, and half a dozenimploring pencils were waved in the air.

"They are sketching you," said Colville, and she sank compliantly intoher seat again.

"I have no doubt for myself--no," she said, as if there had been nointerruption.

"Then we need have no anxiety in meeting your mother," said Colville,with a light sigh, after a moment's pause. "What makes you think shewill be unfavourable?"

"I don't think that; but I thought--I didn't know but--"

"What?"

"Nothing, now." Her lips were quivering; he could see her struggle forself-control, but he could not see it unmoved.

"Poor child!" he said, putting out his hand toward her.

"Don't take my hand; they're all looking," she begged.

He forbore, and they remained silent and motionless a little while,before she had recovered herself sufficiently to speak again.

"Then we are promised to each other, whatever happens," she said.

"Yes."

"And we will never speak of this again. But there is one thing. Did Mrs.Bowen ask you to tell Mr. Morton of our engagement?"

"She said that I ought to do so."

"And did you say you would?"

"I don't know. But I suppose I ought to tell him."

"I don't wish you to!" cried the girl.

"You don't wish me to tell him?"

"No; I will not have it!"

"Oh, very well; it's much easier not. But it seems to me that it's onlyfair to him."

"Did you think of that yourself?" she demanded fiercely.

"No," returned Colville, with sad self-recognition. "I'm afraid I'm notapt to think of the comforts and rights of other people. It was Mrs.Bowen who thought of it."

"I knew it!"

"But I must confess that I agreed with her, though I would havepreferred to postpone it till we heard from your family." He wasthoughtfully silent a moment; then he said, "But if their decision is tohave no weight with us, I think he ought to be told at once."

"Do you think that I am flirting with him?"

"Imogene!" exclaimed Colville reproachfully.

"That's what you imply; that's what she implies."

"You're very unjust to Mrs. Bowen, Imogene."

"Oh, you always defend her! It isn't the first time you've told me I wasunjust to her."

"I don't mean that you are willingly unjust, or could be so, to anyliving creature, least of all to her. But I--we--owe her so much; shehas been so patient."

"What do we owe her? How has she been patient?"

"She has overcome her dislike to me."

"Oh, indeed!"

"And--and I feel under obligation to her for--in a thousand little ways;and I should be glad to feel that we were acting with her approval; Ishould like to please her."

"You wish to tell Mr. Morton?"

"I think I ought."

"To please Mrs. Bowen! Tell him, then! You always cared more to pleaseher than me. Perhaps you stayed in Florence to please her!"

She rose and ran down the broken seats and ruined steps so recklesslyand yet so sure-footedly that it seemed more like a flight than a paceto the place where Mrs. Bowen and Mr. Morton were talking together.

Colville followed as he could, slowly and with a heavy heart. A goodthing develops itself in infinite and unexpected shapes of good; a badthing into manifold and astounding evils. This mistake was whirling awaybeyond his recall in hopeless mazes of error. He saw this generous youngspirit betrayed by it to ignoble and unworthy excess, and he knew thathe and not she was to blame.

He was helpless to approach her, to speak with her, to set her right,great as the need of that was, and he could see that she avoided him.But their relations remained outwardly undisturbed. The artists broughttheir sketches for inspection and comment, and, without speaking to eachother, he and Imogene discussed them with the rest.

When they started homeward the painters said they were coming a littleway with them for a send-off, and then going back to spend the night inFiesole. They walked beside the carriage, talking with Mrs. Bowen andImogene, who had taken their places, with Effie between them, on theback seat; and when they took their leave, Colville and the youngclergyman, who had politely walked with them, continued on foot a littlefurther, till they came to the place where the highway to Florencedivided into the new road and the old. At this point it steeply overtopsthe fields on one side, which is shored up by a wall some ten or twelvefeet deep; and here round a sharp turn of the hill on the other sidecame a peasant driving a herd of the black pigs of the country.

Mrs. Bowen's horses were, perhaps, pampered beyond the habitualresignation of Florentine horses to all manner of natural phenomena;they reared at sight of the sable crew, and backing violently uphill,set the carriage across the road, with its hind wheels a few feet fromthe brink of the wall. The coachman sprang from his seat, the ladies andthe child remained in theirs as if paralysed.

Colville ran forward to the side of the carriage. "Jump, Mrs. Bowen!jump, Effie! Imogene--"

The mother and the little one obeyed. He caught them in his arms and setthem down. The girl sat still, staring at him with reproachful, withdisdainful eyes.

He leaped forward to drag her out; she shrank away, and then he flew tohelp the coachman, who had the maddened horses by the bit.

"Let go!" he heard the young clergyman calling to him; "she's safe!" Hecaught a glimpse of Imogene, whom Mr. Morton had pulled from the otherside of the carriage. He struggled to free his wrist from the curb-bitchain of the horse, through which he had plunged it in his attempt toseize the bridle. The wheels of the carriage went over the wall; he felthimself whirled into the air, and then swung ruining down into thewrithing and crashing heap at the bottom of the wall.

XXI

When Colville came to himself his first sensation was delight in thesoftness and smoothness of the turf on which he lay. Then the strangecolour of the grass commended itself to his notice, and presently heperceived that the thing under his head was a pillow, and that he was inbed. He was supported in this conclusion by the opinion of the young manwho sat watching him a little way off, and who now smiled cheerfully atthe expression in the eyes which Colville turned inquiringly upon him.

"Where am I?" he asked, with what appeared to him very unnecessaryfeebleness of voice.

The young man begged his pardon in Italian, and when Colville repeatedhis question in that tongue, he told him that he was in Palazzo Pinti,whither he had been brought from the scene of his accident. He addedthat Colville must not talk till the doctor had seen him and given himleave, and he explained that he was himself a nurse from the hospital,who had been taking care of him.

Colville moved his head and felt the bandage upon it; he desisted in hisattempt to lift his right arm to it before the attendant could interferein behalf of the broken limb. He recalled dimly and fragmentarily longhistories that he had dreamed, but he forbore to ask how long he hadbeen in his present case, and he accepted patiently the apparition ofthe doctor and other persons who came and went, and were at his bedsideor not there, as it seemed to him, between the opening and closing of aneye. As the days passed they acquired greater permanence and maintaineda more uninterrupted identity. He was able to make quite sure of Mr.Morton and of Mr. Waters; Mrs. Bowen came in, leading Effie, and thisgave him a great pleasure. Mrs. Bowen seemed to have grown younger andbetter. Imogene was not among the phantoms who visited him; and heaccepted her absence as quiescently as he accepted the presence of theothers. There was a cheerfulness in those who came that permitted him noanxiety, and he was too weak to invite it by any conjecture. Heconsented to be spared and to spare himself; and there were some thingsabout the affair which gave him a singular and perhaps not wholly sanecontent. One of these was the man nurse who had evidently taken care ofhim throughout. He celebrated, whenever he looked at this capableperson, his escape from being, in the odious helplessness of sickness, aburden upon the strength and sympathy of the two women for whom he hadotherwise made so much trouble. His satisfaction in this had much to dowith his recovery, which, when it once began, progressed rapidly to apoint where he was told that Imogene and her mother were at a hotel inFlorence, waiting till he should be strong enough to see them. It wasMrs. Bowen who told him this with an air which she visibly strove torender non-committal and impersonal, but which betrayed, nevertheless, afaint apprehension for the effect upon him. The attitude of Imogene andher mother was certainly not one to have been expected of people holdingtheir nominal relation to him, but Colville had been revising hisimpressions of events on the day of his accident; Imogene's last lookcame back to him, and he could not think the situation altogetherunaccountable.

"Have I been here a long time?" he asked, as if he had not heeded whatshe told him.

"About a fortnight," answered Mrs. Bowen.

"And Imogene--how long has she been away?"

"Since they knew you would get well."

"I will see them any time," he said quietly.

"Do you think you are strong enough?"

"I shall never be stronger till I have seen them," he returned, with aglance at her. "Yes; I want them to come to-day. I shall not be excited;don't be troubled--if you were going to be," he added. "Please send tothem at once."

Mrs. Bowen hesitated, but after a moment left the room. She returned inhalf an hour with a lady who revealed even to Colville's languid regardevidences of the character which Mrs. Bowen had attributed to Imogene'smother. She was a large, robust person, laced to sufficient shapeliness,and she was well and simply dressed. She entered the room with a waft ofsome clean, wholesome perfume, and a quiet temperament and perfecthealth looked out of her clear, honest eyes--the eyes of Imogene Graham,though the girl's were dark and the woman's were blue. When Mrs. Bowenhad named them to each other, in withdrawing, Mrs. Graham tookColville's weak left hand in her fresh, strong, right, and then liftedherself a chair to his bedside, and sat down.

"How do you do to-day, sir?" she said, with a touch of old-fashionedrespectfulness in the last word. "Do you think you are quite strongenough to talk with me?"

"I think so," said Colville, with a faint smile. "At least I can listenwith fortitude."

Mrs. Graham was not apparently a person adapted to joking. "I don't knowwhether it will require much fortitude to hear what I have to say ornot," she said, with her keen gaze fixed upon him. "It's simply this: Iam going to take Imogene home."

She seemed to expect that Colville would make some reply to this, and hesaid blankly, "Yes?"

"I came out prepared to consent to what she wished, after I had seenyou, and satisfied myself that she was not mistaken; for I had alwayspromised myself that her choice should be perfectly untrammelled, and Ihave tried to bring her up with principles and ideas that would enableher to make a good choice."

"Yes," said Colville again. "I'm afraid you didn't take her temperamentand her youth into account, and that she disappointed you."

"No; I can't say that she did. It isn't that at all. I see no reason toblame her for her choice. Her mistake was of another kind."

It appeared to Colville that this very sensible and judicial lady foundan intellectual pleasure in the analysis of the case, which modified theintensity of her maternal feeling in regard to it, and that, like manypeople who talk well, she liked to hear herself talk in the presence ofanother appreciative listener. He did not offer to interrupt her, andshe went on. "No, sir, I am not disappointed in her choice. I think herchances of happiness would have been greater, in the abstract, with onenearer her own age; but that is a difference which other things affectso much that it did not alarm me greatly. Some people are younger atyour age than at hers. No, sir, that is not the point." Mrs. Grahamfetched a sigh, as if she found it easier to say what was not the pointthan to say what was, and her clear gaze grew troubled. But sheapparently girded herself for the struggle. "As far as you areconcerned, Mr. Colville, I have not a word to say. Your conductthroughout has been most high-minded and considerate and delicate."

It is hard for any man to deny merits attributed to him, especially ifhe has been ascribing to himself the opposite demerits. But Colvillesummoned his dispersed forces to protest against this.

"Oh, no, no," he cried. "Anything but that. My conduct has been selfishand shameful. If you could understand all--"

"I think I do understand all--at least far more, I regret to say, thanmy daughter has been willing to tell me. And I am more than satisfiedwith you. I thank you and honour you."

"Oh no; don't say that," pleaded Colville. "I really can't stand it."

"And when I came here it was with the full intention of approving andconfirming Imogene's decision. But I was met at once by a painful andsurprising state of things. You are aware that you have been very sick?"

"Dimly," said Colville.

"I found you very sick, and I found my daughter frantic at the errorwhich she had discovered in herself--discovered too late, as she felt."Mrs. Graham hesitated, and then added abruptly, "She had found out thatshe did not love you."

"Didn't love me?" repeated Colville feebly.

"She had been conscious of the truth before, but she had stifled hermisgivings insanely, and, as I feel, almost wickedly, pushing on, andsaying to herself that when you were married, then there would be noescape, and she _must_ love you."

"Poor girl! poor child! I see, I see."

"But the accident that was almost your death saved her from thatmiserable folly and iniquity. Yes," she continued, in answer to theprotest in his face, "folly and iniquity. I found her half crazed atyour bedside. She was fully aware of your danger, but while she wasfeeling all the remorse that she ought to feel--that any one couldfeel--she was more and more convinced that she never had loved you andnever should. I can give you no idea of her state of mind."

"Oh, you needn't! you needn't! Poor, poor child!"

"Yes, a child indeed. If it had not been for the pity I felt forher--But no matter about that. She saw at last that if your heroicdevotion to her"--Colville did his best to hang his pillowed head forshame--"if your present danger did not awaken her to some such feelingfor you as she had once imagined she had; if they both only increasedher despair and self-abhorrence, then the case was indeed hopeless. Shewas simply distracted. I had to tear her away almost by force. She hashad a narrow escape from brain-fever. And now I have come to implore, to_demand_"--Mrs. Graham, with all her poise and calm, was rising to thehysterical key--"her release from a fate that would be worse than deathfor such a girl. I mean marrying without the love of her whole soul. Sheesteems you, she respects you, she admires you, she likes you; but--"Mrs. Graham pressed her lips together, and her eyes shone.

"She is free," said Colville, and with the words a mighty load rolledfrom his heart. "There is no need to demand anything."

"I know."

"There hasn't been an hour, an instant, during--since I--we--spoketogether that I wouldn't have released her if I could have known whatyou tell me now."

"Of course!--of course!"

"I have had my fears--my doubts; but whenever I approached the point Ifound no avenue by which we could reach a clearer understanding. I couldnot say much without seeming to seek for myself the release I wasoffering her."

"Naturally. And what added to her wretchedness was the suspicion atthe bottom of all that she had somehow forced herself upon you--misunderstood you, and made you say and do things to spare her thatyou would not have done voluntarily." This was advanced tentatively. Inthe midst of his sophistications Colville had, as most of his sex have,a native, fatal, helpless truthfulness, which betrayed him at the mostunexpected moments, and this must now have appeared in his countenance.The lady rose haughtily. She had apparently been considering him, but,after all, she must have been really considering her daughter. "Ifanything of the kind was the case," she said, "I will ask you to spareher the killing knowledge. It's quite enough for _me_ to know it. Andallow me to say, Mr. Colville, that it would have been far kinder inyou--"

"Ah, _think,_ my dear madam!" he exclaimed. "How _could_ I?"

She did think, evidently, and when she spoke it was with a generousemotion, in which there was no trace of pique.

"You couldn't. You have done right; I feel that, and I will trust you tosay anything you will to my daughter."

"To your daughter? Shall I see her?"

"She came with me. She wished to beg your forgiveness."

Colville lay silent. "There is no forgiveness to be asked or granted,"he said, at length. "Why should she suffer the pain of seeing me?--forit would be nothing else. What do you think? Will it do her any goodhereafter? I don't care for myself."

"I don't know what to think," said Mrs. Graham. "She is a strange child.She may have some idea of reparation."

"Oh, beseech her from me not to imagine that any reparation is due!Where there has been an error there must be blame; but wherever it liesin ours, I am sure it isn't at her door. Tell her I say this; tell herthat I acquit her with all my heart of every shadow of wrong; that I amnot unhappy, but glad for her sake and my own that this has ended as ithas." He stretched his left hand across the coverlet to her, and said,with the feebleness of exhaustion, "Good-bye. Bid her good-bye for me."

Mrs. Graham pressed his hand and went out. A moment after the door wasflung open, and Imogene burst into the room. She threw herself on herknees beside his bed. "I will _pray_ to you!" she said, her face intensewith the passions working in her soul. She seemed choking with wordswhich would not come; then, with an inarticulate cry that must stand forall, she caught up the hand that lay limp on the coverlet; she crushedit against her lips, and ran out of the room.

He sank into a deathly torpor, the physical refusal of his brain to takeaccount of what had passed. When he woke from it, little Effie Bowen wasairily tiptoeing about the room, fondly retouching its perfect order. Heclosed his eyes, and felt her come to him and smooth the sheet softlyunder his chin. Then he knew she must be standing with clasped handsadmiring the effect. Some one called her in whisper from the door. Itclosed, and all was still again.

XXII

Colville got himself out of the comfort and quiet of Mrs. Bowen's houseas soon as he could. He made the more haste because he felt that if hecould have remained with the smallest trace of self-respect, he wouldhave been glad to stay there for ever.

Even as it was, the spring had advanced to early summer, and the sun waslying hot and bright in the piazzas, and the shade dense and cool in thenarrow streets, before he left Palazzo Pinti; the Lung' Arno was a glareof light that struck back from the curving line of the buff houses; theriver had shrivelled to a rill in its bed; the black cypresses were dimin the tremor of the distant air on the hill-slopes beyond; the olivesseemed to swelter in the sun, and the villa walls to burn whiter andwhiter. At evening the mosquito began to wind his tiny horn. It was theend of May, and nearly everybody but the Florentines had gone out ofFlorence, dispersing to Villa Reggio by the sea, to the hills ofPistoja, and to the high, cool air of Siena. More than once Colville hadsaid that he was keeping Mrs. Bowen after she ought to have got away,and she had answered that she liked hot weather, and that this was notcomparable to the heat of Washington in June. She was looking very well,and younger and prettier than she had since the first days of theirrenewed acquaintance in the winter. Her southern complexion enricheditself in the sun; sometimes when she came into his room from outdoorsthe straying brown hair curled into loose rings on her temples, and hercheeks glowed a deep red.

She said those polite things to appease him as long as he was not wellenough to go away, but she did not try to detain him after his strengthsufficiently returned. It was the blow on the head that kept himlongest. After his broken arm and his other bruises were quite healed,he was aware of physical limits to thinking of the future or regrettingthe past, and this sense of his powerlessness went far to reconcile himto a life of present inaction and oblivion. Theoretically he ought tohave been devoured by remorse and chagrin, but as a matter of fact hesuffered very little from either. Even in people who are in fullpossession of their capacity for mental anguish one observes that afterthey have undergone a certain amount of pain they cease to feel.

Colville amused himself a good deal with Effie's endeavours to entertainhim and take care of him. The child was with him every moment that shecould steal from her tasks, and her mother no longer attempted to stemthe tide of her devotion. It was understood that Effie should joke andlaugh with Mr. Colville as much as she chose; that she should fan him aslong as he could stand it; that she should read to him when he woke, andwatch him when he slept. She brought him his breakfast, she petted himand caressed him, and wished to make him a monster of dependence andself-indulgence. It seemed to grieve her that he got well so fast.

The last night before he left the house she sat on his knee by thewindow looking out beyond the firefly twinkle of Oltrarno, to thesilence and solid dark of the solemn company of hills beyond. They hadnot lighted the lamps because of the mosquitoes, and they had talkedtill her head dropped against his shoulder.

Mrs. Bowen came in to get her. "Why, is she asleep?"

"Yes. Don't take her yet," said Colville.

Mrs. Bowen rustled softly into the chair which Effie had left to getinto Colville's lap. Neither of them spoke, and he was so richly contentwith the peace, the tacit sweetness of the little moment, that he wouldhave been glad to have it silently endure forever. If any troublesomequestion of his right to such a moment of bliss obtruded itself uponhim, he did not concern himself with it.

"We shall have another hot day to-morrow," said Mrs. Bowen at length. "Ihope you will find your room comfortable."

"Yes: it's at the back of the hotel, mighty high, and wide, and no sunever comes into it except when they show it to foreigners in winter.Then they get a few rays to enter as a matter of business, on conditionthat they won't detain them. I dare say I shall stay there some time. Isuppose you will be getting away from Florence very soon.

"Yes. But I haven't decided where to go yet."

"Should you like some general expression of my gratitude for all you'vedone for me, Mrs. Bowen?"

"No; I would rather not. It has been a great pleasure--to Effie."

"Oh, a luxury beyond the dreams of avarice." They spoke in low tones,and there was something in the hush that suggested to Colville thefeasibility of taking into his unoccupied hand one of the pretty handswhich the pale night-light showed him lying in Mrs. Bowen's lap. But heforbore, and only sighed. "Well, then, I will say nothing. But I shallkeep on thinking all my life."

She made no answer.

"When you are gone, I shall have to make the most of Mr. Waters," hesaid.

"He is going to stop all summer, I believe."

"Oh yes. When I suggested to him the other day that he might find it toohot, he said that he had seventy New England winters to thaw out of hisblood, and that all the summers he had left would not be more than heneeded. One of his friends told him that he could cook eggs in hispiazza in August, and he said that he should like nothing better than tocook eggs there. He's the most delightfully expatriated compatriot I'veever seen."

"Do you like it?"

"It's well enough for him. Life has no claims on him any more. I thinkit's very pleasant over here, now that everybody's gone," addedColville, from a confused resentfulness of collectively remembered Daysand Afternoons and Evenings. "How still the night is!"

A few feet clapping by on the pavement below alone broke the hush.

"Sometimes I feel very tired of it all, and want to get home," sighedMrs. Bowen.

"Well, so do I."

"I can't believe it's right staying away from the country so long."People often say such things in Europe.

"No, I don't either, if you've got anything to do there."

"You can always make something to do there."

"Oh yes." Some young young men, breaking from a street near by, began tosing. "We shouldn't have that sort of thing at home."

"No," said Mrs. Bowen pensively.

"I heard just such singing before I fell asleep the night after thatparty at Madame Uccelli's, and it filled me with fury."

"Why should it do that?"

"I don't know. It seemed like voices from our youth--Lina."

She had no resentment of his use of her name in the tone with which sheasked: "Did you hate that so much?"

"No; the loss of it."

They both fetched a deep breath.

"The Uccellis have a villa near the baths of Lucca," said Mrs. Bowen."They have asked me to go."

"I dare say you'd find it perfectly comfortable. There's nothing likehaving the range of one's own house in summer." He looked out of thewindow on the blue-black sky.

"'And deepening through their silent spheres, Heaven over heaven rose the night,'"

he quoted. "It's wonderful! Do you remember how I used to read _Marianain the South_ to you and poor Jenny? How it must have bored her! What anass I was!"

"Yes," said Mrs. Bowen breathlessly, in sympathy with his reminiscencerather than in agreement with his self-denunciation.

Colville broke into a laugh, and then she began to laugh to; but notquite willingly as it seemed.

Effie started from her sleep. "What--what is it?" she asked, stretchingand shivering as half-wakened children do.

"Bed-time," said her mother promptly, taking her hand to lead her away."Say good-night to Mr. Colville."

The child turned and kissed him. "Good night," she murmured.

"Good night, you sleepy little soul!" It seemed to Colville that he mustbe a pretty good man, after all, if this little thing loved him so.

"Do you always kiss Mr. Colville good-night?" asked her mother when shebegan to undo her hair for her in her room.

"Sometimes. Don't you think it's nice?"

"Oh yes; nice enough."

Colville sat by the window a long time thinking Mrs. Bowen might comeback; but she did not return.

Mr. Waters came to see him the next afternoon at his hotel.

"Are you pretty comfortable here?" he asked.

"Well, it's a change," said Colville. "I miss the little one awfully."

"She's a winning child," admitted the old man. "That combination ofconventionality and _naivete_ is very captivating. I notice it in themother."

"Yes, the mother has it too. Have you seen them to-day?"

"Yes; Mrs. Bowen was sorry to be out when you came."

"I had the misfortune to miss them. I had a great mind to go againto-night."

The old man said nothing to this. "The fact is," Colville went on, "I'mso habituated to being there that I'm rather spoiled."

"Ah, it's a nice place," Mr. Waters admitted.

"Of course I made all the haste I could to get away, and I have thereward of a good conscience. But I don't find that the reward is verygreat."

The old gentleman smiled. "The difficulty is to know conscience fromself-interest."

"Oh, there's no doubt of it in my case," said Colville. "If I'dconsulted my own comfort and advantage, I should still be at PalazzoPinti."

"I dare say they would have been glad to keep you."

"Do you really think so?" asked Colville, with sudden seriousness. "Iwish you would tell me why. Have you any reason--grounds? Pshaw! I'mabsurd!" He sank back into the easy-chair from whose depths he hadpulled himself in the eagerness of his demand, and wiped his foreheadwith his handkerchief. "Mr. Waters, you remember my telling you of myengagement to Miss Graham?"

"Yes."

"That is broken off--if it were ever really on. It was a great mistakefor both of us--a tragical one for her, poor child, a ridiculous one forme. My only consolation is that it was a mistake and no more; but Idon't conceal from myself that I might have prevented it altogether if Ihad behaved with greater wisdom and dignity at the outset. But I'mafraid I was flattered by an illusion of hers that ought to have painedand alarmed me, and the rest followed inevitably, though I was alwaysjust on the point of escaping the consequences of my weakness--mywickedness."

"Ah, there is something extremely interesting in all that," said the oldminister thoughtfully. "The situation used to be figured under the oldidea of a compact with the devil. His debtor was always on the point ofescaping, as you say, but I recollect no instance in which he did notpay at last. The myth must have arisen from man's recognition of theinexorable sequence of cause from effect, in the moral world, which evenrepentance cannot avert. Goethe tries to imagine an atonement forFaust's trespass against one human soul in his benefactions to the raceat large; but it is a very cloudy business."

"It isn't quite a parallel case," said Colville, rather sulkily. He had,in fact, suffered more under Mr. Waters's generalisation than he couldfrom a more personal philosophy of the affair.

"Oh no; I didn't think that," consented the old man.

"And I don't think I shall undertake any extended scheme of drainage orsubsoiling in atonement for my little dream," Colville continued,resenting the parity of outline that grew upon him in spite of hisprotest. They were both silent for a while, and then Colville cried out,"Yes, yes; they are alike. _I_ dreamed, too, of recovering and restoringmy own lost and broken past in the love of a young soul, and it was inessence the same cruelly egotistic dream; and it's nothing in my defencethat it was all formless and undirected at first, and that as soon as Irecognised it I abhorred it."

"Oh yes, it is," replied the old man, with perfect equanimity. "Yourassertion is the hysterical excess of Puritanism in all times andplaces. In the moral world we are responsible only for the wrong that weintend. It can't he otherwise."

"And the evil that's suffered from the wrong we didn't intend?"

"Ah, perhaps that isn't evil."

"It's pain!"

"It's pain, yes."

"And to have wrung a young and innocent heart with the anguish ofself-doubt, with the fear of wrong to another, with the shame of anerror such as I allowed, perhaps encouraged her to make--"

"Yes," said the old man. "The young suffer terribly. But they recover.Afterward we don't suffer so much, but we don't recover. I wouldn'tdefend you against yourself if I thought you seriously in the wrong. Ifyou know yourself to be, you shouldn't let me."

Thus put upon his honour, Colville was a long time thoughtful. "How canI tell?" he asked. "You know the facts; you can judge."

"If I were to judge at all, I should say you were likely to do a greaterwrong than any you have committed."

"I don't understand you."

"Miss Graham is a young girl, and I have no doubt that the youngclergyman--what was his name?"

"Morton. Do you think--do you suppose there was anything in that?"demanded Colville, with eagerness, that a more humorous observer thanMr. Waters might have found ludicrous. "He was an admirable youngfellow, with an excellent head and a noble heart. I underrated him atone time, though I recognised his good qualities afterward; but I wasafraid she did not appreciate him."

"I'm not so sure of that," said the old man, with an astuteness ofmanner which Colville thought authorised by some sort of definiteknowledge.

"I would give the world if it were so!" he cried fervently.

"But you are really very much more concerned in something else."

"In what else?"

"Can't you imagine?"

"No," said Colville; but he felt himself growing very red in the face.

"Then I have no more to say."

"Yes, speak!" And after an interval Colville added, "Is it anythingabout--you hinted at something long ago--Mrs. Bowen?"

"Yes;" the old man nodded his head. "Do you owe her nothing?"

"Owe her nothing? Everything! My life! What self-respect is left me!Immeasurable gratitude! The homage of a man saved from himself as far ashis stupidity and selfishness would permit! Why, I--I love her!" Thewords gave him courage. "In every breath and pulse! She is the mostbeautiful and gracious and wisest and best woman in the world! I haveloved her ever since I met her here in Florence last winter. Goodheavens! I must have always loved her! But," he added, falling from therapture of this confession, "she simply loathes _me_!"

"It was certainly not to your credit that you were willing at the sametime to marry some one else."

"Willing! I wasn't willing! I was bound hand and foot! Yes--I don't carewhat you think of my weakness--I was not a free agent. It's very well tocondemn one's-self, but it may be carried too far; injustice to othersis not the only injustice, or the worst. What I was willing to do was tokeep my word--to prevent that poor child, if possible, from ever findingout her mistake."

If Colville expected this heroic confession to impress his listener hewas disappointed. Mr. Waters made him no reply, and he was obliged toask, with a degree of sarcastic impatience, "I suppose you scarcelyblame me for that?"

"Oh, I don't know that I blame people for things. There are times whenit seems as if we were all puppets, pulled this way or that, withoutcontrol of our own movements. Hamlet was able to browbeat Rosencrantzand Guildenstern with his business of the pipe; but if they had been ina position to answer they might have told him that it required far lessskill to play upon a man than any other instrument. Most of us, in fact,go sounding on without any special application of breath or fingers,repeating the tunes that were played originally upon other men. Itappears to me that you suffered yourself to do something of the kind inthis affair. We are a long time learning to act with common-sense oreven common sanity in what are called matters of the affections. Abroken engagement may be a bad thing in some cases, but I am inclined tothink that it is the very best thing that could happen in most caseswhere it happens. The evil is done long before; the broken engagement ismerely sanative, and so far beneficent."

The old gentleman rose, and Colville, dazed by the recognition of hisown cowardice and absurdity, did not try to detain him. But he followedhim down to the outer gate of the hotel. The afternoon sun was pouringinto the piazza a sea of glimmering heat, into which Mr. Waters plungedwith the security of a salamander. He wore a broad-brimmed Panama hat, asack coat of black alpaca, and loose trousers of the same material, andColville fancied him doubly defended against the torrid waves not onlyby the stored cold of half a century of winters at Haddam East Village,but by an inner coolness of spirit, which appeared to diffuse itself inan appreciable atmosphere about him. It was not till he was gone thatColville found himself steeped in perspiration, and glowing with astrange excitement.

XXIII

Colville went back to his own room, and spent a good deal of time in thecontemplation of a suit of clothes, adapted to the season, which hadbeen sent home from the tailor's just before Mr. Waters came in. Thecoat was of the lightest serge, the trousers of a pearly grey tending tolavender, the waistcoat of cool white duck. On his way home from PalazzoPinti he had stopped in Via Tornabuoni and bought some silk gauzeneckties of a tasteful gaiety of tint, which he had at the time thoughtvery well of. But now, as he spread out the whole array on his bed, itseemed too emblematic of a light and blameless spirit for his wear. Heought to put on something as nearly analogous to sackcloth as a modernstock of dry-goods afforded; he ought, at least, to wear the gravematerials of his winter costume. But they were really insupportable inthis sudden access of summer. Besides, he had grown thin during hissickness, and the things bagged about him. If he were going to see Mrs.Bowen that evening, he ought to go in some decent shape. It was perhapsprovidential that he had failed to find her at home in the morning, whenhe had ventured thither in the clumsy attire in which he had beenloafing about her drawing-room for the past week. He now owed it to herto appear before her as well as he could. How charmingly punctilious shealways was herself!

As he put on his new clothes he felt the moral support which thebecomingness of dress alone can give. With the blue silk gauze lightlytied under his collar, and the lapels of his thin coat thrown back toadmit his thumbs to his waistcoat pockets, he felt almost cheerfulbefore his glass. Should he shave? As once before, this importantquestion occurred to him. His thinness gave him some advantages offigure, but he thought that it made his face older. What effect wouldcutting off his beard have upon it? He had not seen the lower part ofhis face for fifteen years. No one could say what recent ruin of adouble chin might not be lurking there. He decided not to shave, atleast till after dinner, and after dinner he was too impatient for hisvisit to brook the necessary delay.

He was shown into the salotto alone, but Effie Bowen came running in tomeet him. She stopped suddenly, bridling.

"You never expected to see me looking quite so pretty," said Colville,tracing the cause of her embarrassment to his summer splendour. "Whereis your mamma?"

"She is in the dining-room," replied the child, getting hold of hishand. "She wants you to come and have coffee with us."

"By all means--not that I haven't had coffee already, though."

She led the way, looking up at him shyly over her shoulder as they went.

Mrs. Bowen rose, napkin in lap, and gave him a hand of welcome. "How areyou feeling to-day?" she asked, politely ignoring his finery.

"Like a new man," he said. And then he added, to relieve the strain ofthe situation, "Of the best tailor's make in Florence."

"You look very well," she smiled.

"Oh, I always do when I take pains," said Colville. "The trouble is thatI don't always take pains. But I thought I would to-night, in upon alady."

"Effie will feel very much flattered," said Mrs. Bowen.

"Don't refuse a portion of the satisfaction," he cried.

"Oh, is it for me too?"

This gave Colville consolation which no religion or philosophy couldhave brought him, and his pleasure was not marred, but ratherheightened, by the little pangs of expectation, bred by long custom,that from moment to moment Imogene would appear. She did not appear, anda thrill of security succeeded upon each alarm. He wished her well withall his heart; such is the human heart that he wished her arrived homethe bretrothed of that excellent, that wholly unobjectionable young man,Mr. Morton.

"Will you have a little of the ice before your coffee?" asked Mrs.Bowen, proposing one of the moulded creams with her spoon.

"Yes, thank you. Perhaps I will take it in place of the coffee. Theyforgot to offer us any ice at the _table d'hote_ this evening."

"This is rather luxurious for us," said Mrs. Bowen. "It's a compromisewith Effie. She wanted me to take her to Giacosa's this afternoon."

"I _thought_ you would come," whispered the child to Colville.

Her mother made a little face of mock surprise at her. "Don't giveyourself away, Effie."

"Why, let us go to Giacosa's too," said Colville, taking the ice. "Weshall be the only foreigners there, and we shall not even feel ourselvesforeign. It's astonishing how the hot weather has dispersed thetourists. I didn't see a Baedeker on the whole way up here, and I walkeddown Via Tornabuoni across through Porta Rosso and the Piazza dellaSignoria and the Uffizzi. You've no idea how comfortable and home-likeit was--all the statues loafing about in their shirt sleeves, and theobjects of interest stretching and yawning round, and having a good restafter their winter's work."

Effie understood Colville's way of talking well enough to enjoy this;her mother did not laugh.

"Walked?" she asked.

"Certainly. Why not?"

"You are getting well again. You'll soon be gone too."

"I've _got_ well. But as to being gone, there's no hurry. I rather thinkI shall wait now to see how long you stay."

"We may keep you all summer," said Mrs. Bowen, dropping her eyelidsindifferently.

"Oh, very well. All summer it is, then. Mr. Waters is going to stay, andhe is such a very cool old gentleman that I don't think one need fearthe wildest antics of the mercury where he is."

When Colville had finished his ice, Mrs. Bowen led the way to thesalotto; and they all sat down by the window there and watched thesunset die on San Miniato. The bronze copy of Michelangelo's David, inthe Piazzale below the church, blackened in perfect relief against thepink sky and then faded against the grey while they talked. They were sodomestic that Colville realised with difficulty that this was an imageof what might be rather than what really was; the very ease with whichhe could apparently close his hand upon the happiness within his graspunnerved him. The talk strayed hither and thither, and went and cameaimlessly. A sound of singing floated in from the kitchen, and Effieeagerly asked her mother if she might go and see Maddalena. Maddalena'smother had come to see her, and she was from the mountains.

"Yes, go," said Mrs. Bowen; "but don't stay too long."

"Oh, I will be back in time," said the child, and Colville rememberedthat he had proposed going to Giacosa's.

"Yes; don't forget." He had forgotten it himself.

"Maddalena is the cook," explained Mrs. Bowen. "She sings ballads toEffie that she learned from her mother, and I suppose Effie wants tohear them at first hand."

"Oh yes," said Colville dreamily.

They were alone now, and each little silence seemed freighted with ameaning deeper than speech.

"Have you seen Mr. Waters to-day?" asked Mrs. Bowen, after one of theselapses.

"Yes; he came this afternoon."

"He is a very strange old man. I should think he would be lonely here."

"He seems not to be. He says he finds company in the history of theplace. And his satisfaction at having got out of Haddam East Village isperennial."

"But he will want to go back there before he dies."

"I don't know. He thinks not. He's a strange old man, as you say. He hasthe art of putting all sorts of ideas into people's heads. Do you knowwhat we talked about this afternoon?"

"No, I don't," murmured Mrs. Bowen.

"About you. And he encouraged me to believe--imagine--that I might speakto you--ask--tell you that--I loved you, Lina." He leaned forward andtook one of the hands that lay in her lap. It trembled with a violenceinconceivable in relation to the perfect quiet of her attitude. But shedid not try to take it away. "Could you--do you love me?"

"Yes," she whispered; but here she sprang up and slipped from his holdaltogether, as with an inarticulate cry of rapture he released her handto take her in his arms.

He followed her a pace or two. "And you will--will be my wife?" hepursued eagerly.

"Never!" she answered, and now Colville stopped short, while a coldbewilderment bathed him from head to foot. It must be some sort of jest,though he could not tell where the humour was, and he could not treat itotherwise than seriously.

"Lina, I have loved you from the first moment that I saw you thiswinter, and Heaven knows how long before!"

"Yes; I know that."

"And every moment."

"Oh, I know that too."

"Even if I had no sort of hope that you cared for me, I loved you somuch that I must tell you before we parted--"

"I expected that--I intended it."

"You intended it! and you do love me! And yet you won't--Ah, I don'tunderstand!"

"How could _you_ understand? I love you--I blush and burn for shame tothink that I love you. But I will never marry you; I can at least helpdoing that, and I can still keep some little trace of self-respect. Howyou must really despise me, to think of anything else, after all thathas happened! Did you suppose that I was merely waiting till that poorgirl's back was turned, as you were? Oh, how can you be yourself, andstill be yourself? Yes, Jenny Wheelwright was right. You are too much ofa mixture, Theodore Colville"--her calling him so showed how often shehad thought of him so--"too much for her, too much for Imogene, too muchfor me; too much for any woman except some wretched creature who enjoysbeing trampled on and dragged through the dust, as you have dragged me."

"_I_ dragged _you_ through the dust? There hasn't been a moment in thepast six months when I wouldn't have rolled myself in it to please you."

"Oh, I knew that well enough! And do you think that was flattering tome?"

"That has nothing to do with it. I only know that I love you, and that Icouldn't help wishing to show it even when I wouldn't acknowledge it tomyself. That is all. And now when I am free to speak, and you own thatyou love me, you won't--I give it up!" he cried desperately. But in thenext breath he implored, "_Why_ do you drive me from you, Lina?"

"Because you have humiliated me too much." She was perfectly steady, buthe knew her so well that in the twilight he knew what bitterness theremust be in the smile which she must be keeping on her lips. "I was herein the place of her mother, her best friend, and you made me treat herlike an enemy. You made me betray her and cast her off."

"I?"

"Yes, you! I knew from the very first that you did not really care forher, that you were playing with yourself, as you were playing with her,and I ought to have warned her."

"It appears to me you did warn her," said Colville, with some resentfulreturn of courage.

"I tried," she said simply, "and it made it worse. It made it worsebecause I knew that I was acting for my own sake more than hers, becauseI wasn't--disinterested." There was something in this explanation,serious, tragic, as it was to Mrs. Bowen, which made Colville laugh. Shemight have had some perception of its effect to him, or it may have beenmerely from a hysterical helplessness, but she laughed too a little.

"But why," he gathered courage to ask, "do you still dwell upon that?Mr. Waters told me that Mr. Morton--that there was--"

"He is mistaken. He offered himself, and she refused him. He told me."

"Oh!"

"Do you think she would do otherwise, with you lying here between lifeand death? No: you can have no hope from that."

Colville, in fact, had none. This blow crushed and dispersed him. He hadnot strength enough to feel resentment against Mr. Waters for misleadinghim with this _ignis fatuus_.

"No one warned him, and it came to that," said Mrs. Bowen. "It was of apiece with the whole affair. I was weak in that too."

Colville did not attempt to reply on this point. He feebly reverted tothe inquiry regarding himself, and was far enough from mirth in resumingit.

"I couldn't imagine," he said, "that you cared anything for me when youwarned another against me. If I could--"

"You put me in a false position from the beginning. I ought to havesympathised with her and helped her instead of making the poor childfeel that somehow I hated her. I couldn't even put her on guard againstherself, though I knew all along that she didn't really care for you,but was just in love with her own fancy for you, Even after you wereengaged I ought to have broken it off; I ought to have been frank withher; it was my duty; but I couldn't without feeling that I was actingfor myself too, and I would not submit to that degradation. No! I wouldrather have died. I dare say you don't understand. How could you? Youare a man, and the kind of man who couldn't. At every point you made meviolate every principle that was dear to me. I loathed myself for caringfor a man who was in love with me when he was engaged to another. Don'tthink it was gratifying to me. It was detestable; and yet I did let yousee that I cared for you. Yes, I even _tried_ to make you care forme--falsely, cruelly, treacherously."

"You didn't have to try very hard," said Colville, with a sort of coldresignation to his fate.

"Oh no; you were quite ready for any hint. I could have told her for herown sake that she didn't love you, but that would have been for my saketoo; and I would have told you if I hadn't cared for you and known howyou cared for me. I've saved at least the consciousness of this from thewreck."

"I don't think it's a great treasure," said Colville. "I wish that youhad saved the consciousness of having been frank even to your ownadvantage."

"Do you dare to reproach me, Theodore Colville? But perhaps I'vedeserved this too."

"No, Lina, you certainly don't deserve it, if it's unkindness, from me.I won't afflict you with my presence: but will you listen to me before Igo?"

She sank into a chair in sign of assent. He also sat down. He had a dimimpression that he could talk better if he took her hand, but he did notventure to ask for it. He contented himself with fixing his eyes upon asmuch of her face as he could make out in the dusk, a pale blur in avague outline of dark.

"I want to assure you, Lina--Lina, my love, my dearest, as I shall callyou for the first and last time!--that I _do_ understand everything, asdelicately and fully as you could wish, all that you have expressed, andall that you have left unsaid. I understand how high and pure yourideals of duty are, and how heroically, angelically, you have struggledto fulfil them, broken and borne down by my clumsy and stupidselfishness from the start. I want you to believe, my dearest love--youmust forgive me!--that if I didn't see everything at the time, I do seeit now, and that I prize the love you kept from me far more than anylove you could have given me to the loss of your self-respect. It isn'tlogic--it sounds more like nonsense, I am afraid--but you know what Imean by it. You are more perfect, more lovely to me, than any being inthe world, and I accept whatever fate you choose for me. I would not winyou against your will if I could. You are sacred to me. If you say wemust part, I know that you speak from a finer discernment than mine, andI submit. I will try to console myself with the thought of your love, ifI may not have you. Yes, I submit."

His instinct of forbearance had served him better than the subtlest art.His submission was the best defence. He rose with a real dignity, andshe rose also. "Remember," he said, "that I confess all you accuse meof, and that I acknowledge the justice of what you do--because you doit." He put out his hand and took the hand which hung nerveless at herside. "You are quite right. Good-bye." He hesitated a moment. "May Ikiss you, Lina?" He drew her to him, and she let him kiss her on thelips.

"Good-bye," she whispered. "Go--"

"I am going."

Effie Bowen ran into the room from the kitchen.

"Aren't you going to take--" She stopped and turned to her mother. Shemust not remind Mr. Colville of his invitation; that was what hergesture expressed.

Colville would not say anything. He would not seize his advantage, andplay upon the mother's heart through the feelings of her child, thoughthere is no doubt that he was tempted to prolong the situation by anymeans. Perhaps Mrs. Bowen divined both the temptation and theresistance. "Tell her," she said, and turned away.

"I can't go with you to-night, Effie," he said, stooping toward her forthe inquiring kiss that she gave him. "I am--going away, and I must saygood-bye."

The solemnity of his voice alarmed her. "Going away!" she repeated.

"Yes--away from Florence. I'm afraid I shall not see you again."

The child turned from him to her mother again, who stood motionless.Then, as if the whole calamitous fact had suddenly flashed upon her, sheplunged her face against her mother's breast. "I can't _bear_ it!" shesobbed out; and the reticence of her lamentation told more than a stormof cries and prayers.

Colville wavered.

"Oh, you must stay!" said Lina, in the self-contemptuous voice of awoman who falls below her ideal of herself.

XXIV

In the levities which the most undeserving husbands permit themselveswith the severest of wives, there were times after their marriage whenColville accused Lina of never really intending to drive him away, butof meaning, after a disciplinary ordeal, to marry him in reward of histested self-sacrifice and obedience. He said that if the appearance ofEffie was not a _coup de theatre_ contrived beforehand, it was anaccident of no consequence whatever; that if she had not come in at thatmoment, her mother would have found some other pretext for detaininghim. This is a point which I would not presume to decide. I only knowthat they were married early in June before the syndic of Florence, whotied a tricolour sash round his ample waist for the purpose, and neverlooked more paternal or venerable than when giving the sanction of theItalian state to their union. It is not, of course, to be supposed thatMrs. Colville was contented with the civil rite, though Colville mayhave thought it quite sufficient. The religious ceremony took place inthe English chapel, the assistant clergyman officiating in the absenceof the incumbent, who had already gone out of town.

The Rev. Mr. Waters gave away the bride, and then went home to PalazzoPinti with the party, the single and singularly honoured guest at theirwedding feast, for which Effie Bowen went with Colville to Giacosa's toorder the ices in person. She has never regretted her choice of a stepfather, though when Colville asked her how she would like him in thatrelation she had a moment of hesitation, in which she reconciled herselfto it; as to him she had no misgivings. He has sometimes found himselfthe object of little jealousies on her part, but by promptly decidingall questions between her and her mother in Effie's favour he hasconvinced her of the groundlessness of her suspicions.

In the absence of any social pressure to the contrary, the Colvillesspent the summer in Palazzo Pinti. Before their fellow-sojournersreturned from the _villeggiatura_ in the fall, however, they had turnedtheir faces southward, and they are now in Rome, where, arriving as amarried couple, there was no inquiry and no interest in their past.

It is best to be honest, and own that the affair with Imogene has beenthe grain of sand to them. No one was to blame, or very much to blame;even Mrs. Colville says that. It was a thing that happened, but onewould rather it had not happened.

Last winter, however, Mrs. Colville received a letter from Mrs. Grahamwhich suggested, if it did not impart, consolation. "Mr. Morton was herethe other day, and spent the morning. He has a parish at Erie, and thereis talk of his coming to Buffalo."

"Oh, Heaven grant it!" said Colville, with sudden piety.

"Why?" demanded his wife.

"Well, I wish she was married."

"You have nothing whatever to do with her."

It took him some time to realise that this was the fact.

"No," he confessed; "but what do you think about it?"

"There is no telling. We are such simpletons! If a man will keep on longenough--But if it isn't Mr. Morton, it will be some one else--some_young_ person."

Colville rose and went round the breakfast table to her. "I hope so," hesaid. "_I_ have married a young person, and it would only be fair."